Mo. awaiting feds' decision on food stamp error

Missouri could soon learn whether it will have to repay the federal government for accidentally inflating the state's food stamp rolls.

State officials acknowledged in December 2009 that a computer programming error led Missouri to over-report the number of food stamp participants to the federal government for six straight years. During that time, Missouri received more than $14 million in federal bonuses because of its high participation rates.

A spokeswoman for the federal Food and Nutrition Service tells The Associated Press that the analysis of Missouri's situation should be complete within weeks.

Missouri is awaiting word on whether it will have to pay back some of the bonus money, and whether it could be penalized for having too high of an error rate.